Letter To Quotes

I write to you to tell you that you don't stop being present, close by, that you accompany me everywhere I go, that this world is you, you alone, and that because of that it is larger, that it has found, thanks to you, a new dimension, a new coordinate, the one I could no longer bring myself to grant it, that it is no longer that implacable solitude that forced me at each moment to sack what rose in front of me, to hound myself - that everything changes, changes, changes under your gaze -

from a letter to Gisele Celan-Lestrange ~ Paul Celan

If you sum up your judgment of me, the result you get is that, although you don't charge me with anything downright improper or wicked . . . , you do charge me with coldness, estrangements and ingratitude. And, what is more, you charge me with it in such a way as to make it seem my fault, as though I might have been able, with something like a touch on the steering wheel, to make everything quite different, while you aren't in the slightest to blame, unless it be for having been too good to me.
This, your usual way of representing it, I regard as accurate only in so far as I too believe you are entirely blameless in the matter of our estrangement. But I am equally entirely blameless. If I could get you to acknowledge this, then what would be possible is - not, I think, a new life, we are both much too old for that - but still, a kind of peace . . . ~ Franz Kafka

Just as a painter needs light in order to put the finishing touches to his picture, so I need an inner light, which I feel I never have enough of in the autumn. ~ Leo Tolstoy

This society [Jesuits] has been a greater calamity to mankind than the French Revolution, or Napoleon's despotism or ideology. It has obstructed the progress of reformation and the improvement of the human mind in society much longer and more fatally.

{Letter to Thomas Jefferson, November 4, 1816. Adams wrote an anonymous 4 volume work on the destructive history of the Jesuits} ~ John Adams

What would you like your greatest legacy to be for your child? What will you do to ensure that your child attains that legacy? Write a letter to yourself describing your hopes and dreams for your child---the legacy you would like to leave. Reread your letter often. ~ Michele Borba

The possible or impossible for Allah Most High involves the divine attribute of qudra or omnipotence, "what He can do". This attribute in turn relates exclusively to the intrinsically possible, not to what is intrinsically impossible, as Allah says, "Verily Allah has power over every thing" (Qur'an 20:29), "thing" being something that in principle can exist. For example, if one asks "Can Allah create square circle?" the answer is that His omnipotence does not relate to it, for a square circle does not refer to anything that in principle could exist: the speaker does not have a distinct idea of what he means, but is merely using a jumble of words.
"On the validity of all religions in the thought of ibn Al-'Arabi and Emir 'Abd al-Qadir: a letter to `Abd al-Matin ~ Nuh Ha Mim Keller

Inej nodded. "I gave your letter to the guard at the door, and it did the trick. They brought me directly to two members of the Triumvirate."
"Who did you meet with?" said Kaz.
"Genya Safin and Zoya Nazyalensky."
Wylan sat forward. "The Tailor? She's at the embassy?"
Kaz raised a brow. "What an interesting fact to forget to mention, Nina."
"It wasn't relevant at the time."
"Of course it's relevant!" Wylan said angrily.
Jesper was a little surprised. Wylan hadn't seemed to mind wearing Kuwei's features at first. He'd almost seemed to welcome the distance it gave him from his father. But that had been before they'd gone to Saint Hilde. And before Jesper had kissed Kuwei. ~ Leigh Bardugo

Fanfiction isn't copying - it's a celebration. One long party, from the first capital letter to the last full stop! ~ Jasper Fforde

In 1938, I. G. Farben sent a letter to (a major drug firm), one of its American subsidiaries, (that)..all advertising contracts must contain ' ... a legal clause whereby the contract is immediately cancelled if overnight the attitude of the paper toward Germany should be changed. ~ G. Edward Griffin

I wish that the founders had had the foresight to hang on to and enshrine another one of Independence Hall's chairs, the one that Benjamin Rush mentioned in a letter to John Adams about how Thomas Jefferson objected when his colleagues in the Continental Congress considered a fast day, which Jefferson pooh-poohed as too religious. Rush reminded Adams, 'You rose and defended the motion, and in reply to Mr. Jefferson's objections to Christianity you said you were sorry to hear such sentiments …. You suspected, you told me, that you had offended him, but that he soon convinced you to the contrary by crossing the room and taking a seat in the chair next to you.'

Who knows what happened to that particular chair. … But it might have been a more helpful, sobering symbolic object than that chair with the rising sun. Then perhaps citizens making pilgrimages to Independence Hall could file past the chair Jefferson walked across an aisle to sit in, and we could all ponder the amount of respect, affection, and wishy-washy give-and-take needed to keep a house divided in reasonable repair. ~ Sarah Vowell

Petyr had been talking about mathematics again, boring everyone, when her mother looked up from her plate with a smile and announced that Julie had written a letter to say she'd quit the family. Clarissa's mouth had dropped open. It was like saying that the sun had decided to become a politician or that four had decided to be eight. It wasn't quite incomprehensible, but it lived on the edge. ~ James S.A. Corey

I met a lot of things on the way that astonished me. Tom Bombadil I knew already; but I had never been to Bree. Strider sitting in the corner at the inn was a shock, and I had no more idea who he was than had Frodo. The Mines of Moria had been a mere name; and of Lothloriene no word had reached my mortal ears till I came there. Far away I knew there were the Horselords on the confines of an ancient Kingdom of Men, but Fanghorn Forest was an unforeseen adventure. I had never heard of the House of Eorl nor of the Stewards of Gondor. Most disquieting of all, Saruman had never been revealed to me, and I was as mystefied as Frodo at Gandalf's failure to appear on September 22.
J.R.R. Tolkien, in a letter to W.H. Auden, June 7, 1955 ~ J.R.R. Tolkien

You can add some class to it by sealing it with wax. This makes me feel like I'm a Baron sending a letter to the Duchess. Look at that sophistication. ~ Dan Bergstein

< Dear Luke,
I'm sorry for coming by unannounced. You haven't been returning my texts, and a stronger man would have gotten the hint - >
Movement caught my eye. I looked at him. He was signing. Slowly. Imperfectly. Little inflections were wrong, and he got some of the ideas out of order, but he was, as best he could, reciting the letter to me.
- gotten the hint, but I'm not strong. I'm not proud. I'm in love with you, and I'm sorry for hurting you. Please let me say my piece, and then I'll leave if you want. But I'd never be able to look in a mirror if the last time we spoke was that night on the phone.
You are nothing but love and warmth and strength, and the world was a better place when you were a nurse in it. I don't know how serious things are, but if you can get back into nursing, that's what I want for you. If there's a way I can help - any way at all, big or small - please tell me. You deserve your dreams, and I was a complete ass for the things I said during our fight.
I'll never do that again. Never. If you let me in your life, I promise to listen. To always listen. To listen carefully and compassionately. I'll give you advice when you want it or help if you need it, but I will always listen.
And if you want me, a reclaimed ass who promises to do better, in your life, it would make me happy. I don't know what we'd look like in the real world, but I can't think of another person I'd rather figure things out with.
We've ~ Peter Styles

When a robot dies, you don't have to write a letter to its mother, ~ P. W. Singer

If circumstances should make it impossible (temporarily, I hope) for me to be a Russian writer, perhaps I shall be able, like the Pole Joseph Conrad, to become for a time an English writer ... ("Letter To Stalin") ~ Yevgeny Zamyatin

Saigon in utter darkness this last night of the war. A gestating monster. Her letter to Linh had been simple: I love you more than life, but I had to see the end. ~ Tatjana Soli

I wish you always the joyous summer you deserve and blame you not for fleeing the stark winter you saw in me.
-Stanton Horne, Lord Wyndham (in his letter to Lady Alicia) ~ Celeste Bradley

Emma thought of Julian, sitting here, in this office. Year after year, from the time he was twelve and all scraped elbows and torn jeans. He would sit patiently with pen and ink, writing his letter to the Clave, petitioning them to let his sister Helen come home from Wrangel Island. ~ Cassandra Clare

Most people give substantial weight to anecdotal evidence, perhaps so much that it will cancel out positive recommendations found in consumer reports. People's tendency to give undue weight to some types of information is called the availability heuristic. A heuristic is a rule of thumb, a mental shortcut. Suppose someone asked you a question like what's more common in English, words that start with the letter to r words that have t as the third letter. You would have an easier time generating words that started with the letter t. Words starting with t would be more 'available'. ~ Barry Schwartz

My personal favorite version of the game, Speed Scrabble, is played with tiles only. Each player selects seven tiles. At the call to start, each player turns over his or her tiles. Using these letters, the player creates an individual grid of six letters, with two or possibly three intersecting words, selecting one letter to pass along. The first player to finish calls out the word switch, passes the rejected tiles to the player at the right, and turns over two new tiles from the general pile. Each player then incorporates the new tiles into his or her grid, always rejecting one to pass along at the word switch. Obvious rejects are Q and Z, which usually get passed around. The game is played until the tiles are depleted and one person calls out the word finished. If no one has any questions about the winner's grid, the points on the tiles are added up. Losers deduct the number of points of the unused letters. Each round takes about fifteen or twenty minutes max... ~ Michelle Arnot

Altho' I rarely waste time in reading on theological subjects, as mangled by our Pseudo-Christians, yet I can readily suppose Basanistos may be amusing. Ridicule is the only weapon which can be used against unintelligible propositions. Ideas must be distinct before reason can act upon them; and no man ever had a distinct idea of the trinity. It is mere Abracadabra of the mountebanks calling themselves the priests of Jesus. If it could be understood it would not answer their purpose. Their security is in their faculty of shedding darkness, like the scuttlefish, thro' the element in which they move, and making it impenetrable to the eye of a pursuing enemy, and there they will skulk.
[Letter to Francis Adrian Van der Kemp on 30 July 1810 denouncing the Christian doctrine of the Trinity] ~ Thomas Jefferson

One noteworthy study suggests that people who suppress negative emotions tend to leak those emotions later in unexpected ways. The psychologist Judith Grob asked people to hide their emotions when she showed them disgusting images. She even had them hold pens in their mouths to prevent them from frowning. She found that this group reported feeling less disgusted by the pictures than did those who'd been allowed to react naturally. Later, however, the people who hid their emotions suffered side effects. Their memory was impaired, and the negative emotions they'd suppressed seemed to color their outlook. When Grob had them fill in the missing letter to the word "gr_ss", for example, they were more likely than others to offer "gross" rather than "grass". "People who tend to [suppress their negative emotions] regularly," concludes Grob, "might start to see their world in a more negative light." p. 223 ~ Susan Cain

The apostle Paul often appears in Christian thought as the one chiefly responsible for the de-Judaization of the gospel and even for the transmutation of the person of Jesus from a rabbi in the Jewish sense to a divine being in the Greek sense. Such an interpretation of Paul became almost canonical in certain schools of biblical criticism during the nineteenth century, especially that of Ferdinand Christian Baur, who saw the controversy between Paul and Peter as a conflict between the party of Peter, with its 'Judaizing' distortion of the gospel into a new law, and the party of Paul, with its universal vision of the gospel as a message about Jesus for all humanity. Very often, of course, this description of the opposition between Peter and Paul and between law and gospel was cast in the language of the opposition between Roman Catholicism (which traced its succession to Peter as the first pope) and Protestantism (which arose from Luther's interpretation of the epistles of Paul). Luther's favorite among those epistles, the letter to the Romans, became the charter for this supposed declaration of independence from Judaism. ~ Jaroslav Pelikan

My nominee for Best Picture of the year - maybe the best picture ever, because it's essentially made up of and is an ecstatic love letter to all other movies - is Christian Marclay's endlessly enticing must-see masterpiece 'The Clock.' ~ Jerry Saltz

What vexes me most is, that my female friends, who could bear me very well a dozen years ago, have now forsaken me, although I am not so old in proportion to them as I formerly was: which I can prove by arithmetic, for then I was double their age, which now I am not. Letter to Alexander Pope. 7 Feb. 1736. ~ Jonathan Swift

To me, detective stories are a great solace, a sort of mental knitting, where it doesn't matter if you drop a stitch."

[From a letter to George Lyttelton] ~ Rupert Hart-Davis

That evening, Hope wrote a letter to her MP, Jack Crow. She found no difficulty at all in composing it, but quite a bit in writing it. She hadn't hand-written an entire page since primary school. In the end she found an app on her glasses that sampled her handwriting and turned it into a font that looked like her handwriting would if it had been regular, and printed it off. There was even an app for the printer that indented the paper a little, and an ink that looked like ballpoint ink. ~ Ken MacLeod

She knew that he would stop her. Perhaps he would be cunning about it. Maybe he would go to the steward behind her back, tell him of the theft and challenge, and ask to be brought before the judge and Irex. If that plan didn't suit Arin, he would find another.
He was going to be a problem.
"You're right," she told him.
Arin blinked, then narrowed his eyes.
"In fact," she continued, "if you had let me explain, I would have told you that I had already decided to call off the duel."
"You have."
She showed him the two letters. The one addressed to her father was on top. She let the mere edge of the other letter show. "One is for my father, telling him what has happened. The other is for Irex, making my apologies and inviting him to collect his five hundred gold pieces whenever he likes."
Arin still looked skeptical.
"He'll also collect you, of course. Knowing him, he'll have you whipped until you're unconscious and even after that. I'm sure that when you wake up, you'll be very glad that I decided to do exactly as you wanted."
Arin snorted.
"If you doubt me, you're welcome to walk with me to the barracks to watch as I give my father's letter to a soldier, with orders for its swift delivery."
"I think I will." He opened the library door.
They left the house and crossed the hard ground. Kestrel shivered. She hadn't stopped to fetch a cloak. She couldn't risk that Arin would change his mind.
When they entered the barra ~ Marie Rutkoski

Would it not be better if they spent more money on wholesome things like oranges and wholemeal bread or if they even, like the writer of the letter to the New Statesman, saved on fuel and ate their carrots raw? Yes, it would, but the point is that no ordinary human being is ever going to do such a thing. The ordinary human being would sooner starve than live on brown bread and raw carrots. And the peculiar evil is this, that the less money you have, the less inclined you feel to spend it on wholesome food. A millionaire may enjoy breakfasting off orange juice and Ryvita biscuits; an unemployed man doesn't. Here the tendency of which I spoke at the end of the last chapter comes into play. When you are unemployed, which is to say when you are underfed, harassed, bored, and miserable, you don't want to eat dull wholesome food. You want something a little bit 'tasty'. There is always some cheaply pleasant thing to tempt you. ~ George Orwell

When I was seven, I gave a letter to Cinderella in Disney World asking if I could be in a Disney movie. So, working for Disney was really a childhood dream come true. ~ Brittany Curran

As you say of yourself, I too am an Epicurean. I consider the genuine (not the imputed) doctrines of Epicurus as containing everything rational in moral philosophy which Greece and Rome have left us.
[Letter to William Short, 31 October 1819] ~ Thomas Jefferson

From the fissure of their ever-present double consciousness sprang the idea of the double victory, articulated by James Thompson in his letter to the Pittsburgh Courier: "Let colored Americans adopt the double VV for a double victory; the first V for victory over our enemies from without, the second V for victory over our enemies within. ~ Margot Lee Shetterly

When I was only eleven years old, I decided to become a writer. I told this ambition in a letter to Laura Ingalls Wilder; the die was cast. How could I go back on my word? ~ Sonia Levitin

You are more to me than any of them has any idea; you are the atmosphere of beauty through which I see life; you are the incarnation of all lovely things...I think of you day and night. ~ Letter to Lord Alfred 'Bosie' Douglas ~ Oscar Wilde

To celebrate his prosperity, fellow employees and friends urged him to take a young concubine to "serve him". Even Ye Ye's boss, the London-educated K. C. Li, jokingly volunteered to "give" him a couple of girls with his bonus. Ye Ye reported all this in a matter-of-fact way in a letter to his wife, adding touchingly that he was a "one-woman man". ~ Adeline Yen Mah

The whole notion of exemplary violence seemed to fire Lenin's imagination. On August 11, 1918 he wrote a letter to Bolshevik leaders in Penza that speaks volumes: Comrades! The kulak uprising must be crushed without pity ... An example must be made. 1) Hang (and I mean hang so that the people can see) not less than 100 known bloodsuckers. 2) Publish their names. 3) Take all their grain away from them ... Do this so that for hundreds of miles around the people can see, tremble, know and cry: they are killing and will go on killing the bloodsucking kulaks ... P.S. Find tougher people. ~ Niall Ferguson

Another means of silently lessening the inequality of property is to exempt all from taxation below a certain point, and to tax the higher portions or property in geometrical progression as they rise. Whenever there are in any country uncultivated lands and unemployed poor, it is clear that the laws of property have been so far extended as to violate natural right. The earth is given as a common stock for man to labor and live on.
Letter to James Madison, October 28, 1785 ~ Thomas Jefferson

Nixon was becoming a discombobulated president, politically on the run. His interior secretary, Walter Hickel, posted a letter to the president that leaked to the Washington Star: "Youth in its protest must be heard." Thomas Jefferson, James Madison, and James Monroe were all young people in their day, Hickel argued; their "protests fell on deaf ears and finally led to war." (The president's response was to bulldoze the White House tennis court, beloved of Hickel.) ~ Rick Perlstein

It was at this time that he published an open letter to a Communist leader assuring him that Nazism and Communism were really the same thing. ~ William L. Shirer

None were particularly interesting, although I got a kick out of a note from the Philadelphia Zoo suggesting that since the tiger was not entirely reliable around humans, perhaps Mr. Willing would consider a leopard for his painting instead. It had been a pet until the demise (natural) of its owner and would, if not firmly admonished, climb into a person's lap, purring, and drool copiously.
I pulled a sheet of scrap paper (the Stars spent a lot of time sending all-school e-mails about recycling) out of my bag and made a note on the blank side: "Leopard in The Lady in DeNile?" It wasn't my favorite, Cleopatra Awaiting the Return of Anthony. It was a little OTT, loaded with gold and snake imagery and, of course, the leopard. Diana hadn't liked the painting,either, apparently; she was the one who'd given it the Lady in DeNile nickname.I wondered if the leopard had drooled on her.
None of the papers were personal, but they were Edward's and some were special, if you knew about his life. There was a bill from the Hotel Ritz in Paris in April 1890, and one from Cartier two months later for a pair of Tahitian pearl drop earrings. Diana was wearing them in my favorite photograph of the two of them: happy and visibly tanned, even in black and white, holding lobsters on a beach in Maine. "I insisted we let them go," Diana wrote in a letter to her niece. "Edward had a snit.He wanted a lobster dinner, but I could not countenance eating a fellow model. ~ Melissa Jensen

You are my work of art," Wilbur Larch told Homer Wells. "Everything else has just been a job. I don't know if you've got a work of art in you," Larch concluded in his letter to Homer, "but I know what your job is,and you know what it is, too. ~ John Irving

you are the faint line between faith and blindly waiting - letter to my future lover ~ Rupi Kaur

It's a soulful Sunday, somehow I found myself pulling out my journal and started writing a letter to Sensuality. And it goes like this: Sensuality...

You've opened me up to a world of possibilities and set me on an adventure that has never ceased to amaze me. You have led me through unfounded territories. Through the highest highs and lowest lows I've felt your current, sometimes raging like an angry sea and at times blowing as gentle as a cool summer breeze.

You've filled me with such an insatiable desire, which has been both a curse and a blessing. You've sensitized my soul, made it to feel even the most gentle touch of the lightest feather. You daily seduce me into your deep waters, waters so deep I find myself drowning, yet not losing my breath.

Sensuality... I love how you soothe me when I'm hurting. I love how you comfort and put me back together when I'm feeling broken. I love how you whisper in my ear and say 'do not despair, I'm here.' You uncover my deepest desires and set my soul on fire. You light me up and make me shine like the brightest star on a clear summer night.

There's never a dull moment with you. Just when I think there can't possibly be more, you show me again and again that there's always another level... another layer... another blessing. Your mysteries never run out. I've come know you like God's very own presence. Indeed, you are His very own favour to my soul. His divine beauty, passion and wisdom have I ~ Lebo Grand

Even years afterward I suffered from the tormenting fancy that the huge man, my father, the ultimate authority, would come almost for no reason at all and take me out of bed in the night and carry me out onto the pavlatche, and that consequently I meant absolutely nothing as far as he was concerned. ~ Franz Kafka

Your work, coming from a fluid source, can be traced to the naked song of your youth. You spoke then of holding hands with God. Remember, through everything, you have always held that hand, grip it hard, Robert, and don't let go.

(letter to Robert Mapplethorpe, 1970) ~ Patti Smith

I was a timid child. For all that, I am sure I was also obstinate, as children are. I am sure that Mother spoiled me too, but I cannot believe I was particularly difficult to manage; I cannot believe that a kindly word, a quiet taking by the hand, a friendly look, could not have got me to do anything that was wanted of me. Now you are, after all, basically a charitable and kindhearted person (what follows will not be in contradiction to this, I am speaking only of the impression you made on the child), but not every child has the endurance and fearlessness to go on searching until it comes to the kindliness that lies beneath the surface. You can treat a child only in the way you yourself are constituted, with vigor, noise, and hot temper, and in this case such behavior seemed to you to be also most appropriate because you wanted to bring me up to be a strong, brave boy. ~ Franz Kafka

May it [American independence] be to the world, what I believe it will be, (to some parts sooner, to others later, but finally to all,) the signal of arousing men to burst the chains under which monkish ignorance and superstition had persuaded them to bind themselves, and to assume the blessings and security of self-government. That form which we have substituted, restores the free right to the unbounded exercise of reason and freedom of opinion. All eyes are opened, or opening, to the rights of man. The general spread of the light of science has already laid open to every view the palpable truth, that the mass of mankind has not been born with saddles on their backs, nor a favored few booted and spurred, ready to ride them legitimately... These are grounds of hope for others. For ourselves, let the annual return of this day forever refresh our recollections of these rights, and an undiminished devotion to them.

[Letter to Roger C. Weightman on the anniversary of the signing of the Declaration of Independence in 1776, 24 June 1826. This was Jefferson's last letter] ~ Thomas Jefferson

Book publishers needed only to listen to Jeff Bezos himself to have their fears stoked. Amazon's founder repeatedly suggested he had little reverence for the old "gatekeepers" of the media, whose business models were forged during the analogue age and whose function it was to review content and then subjectively decide what the public got to consume. This was to be a new age of creative surplus, where it was easy for anyone to create something, find an audience, and allow the market to determine the proper economic reward. "Even well meaning gatekeepers slow innovation," Bezos wrote in his 2011 letter to shareholders. "When a platform is self-service, even the improbable ideas can get tried, because there's no expert gatekeeper ready to say 'that will never work!' And guess what - many of those improbable ideas do work, and society is the beneficiary of that diversity. ~ Brad Stone

From a letter to Barrett H.Clark, 4 May 1918(LL,II,pp.204-5):
my attitude to subjects and expressions, the angles of vision, my methods of composition will, within limits, be always changing
not because I am unstable or unpricipled but because I am free. Or perhaps it may be more exact to say, because I am always trying for freedom
within my limits ... A work of art is seldom limited to one exclusive meaning and not necessarily tending to a definite conclusion. And this for the reason that the nearer it approaches art, the more it acquires a symbolic character. ~ Joseph Conrad

If we look back into history for the character of present sects in Christianity, we shall find few that have not in their turns been persecutors, and complainers of persecution. The primitive Christians thought persecution extremely wrong in the Pagans, but practised it on one another. The first Protestants of the Church of England, blamed persecution in the Roman church, but practised it against the Puritans: these found it wrong in the Bishops, but fell into the same practice themselves both here and in New England.
[Letter to the London Packet, 3 June 1772] ~ Benjamin Franklin

We poets would die of loneliness but for women, and we choose our men friends that we may have somebody to talk about women with. Letter to Olivia Shakespeare, 1936 ~ William Butler Yeats

I stayed at home because I prefer to be in my own room, with my own family, or in my garden - which is lovely this year…

(Felix Mendelssohn, in a letter to Ignaz Moscheles, 1832) ~ Felix Mendelssohn

One common abbreviation used in Roman letters was SPD, which was short for salutem plurimam dicit, or "sends many greetings." This served as a greeting at the beginning of a letter, to indicate the sender and the receiver, as in "Marcus Sexto SPD" ("Marcus sends many greetings to Sextus"). Another popular acronym was SVBEEV, which was short for si vales, bene est, ego valeo ("if you are well, that is good, I am well"). Such abbreviations saved space and time, just as acronyms (BTW, AFAIK, IANAL) do today in Internet posts and text messages. ~ Tom Standage

One cannot always tell what it is that keeps us shut in, confines us, seems to bury us, but still one feels certain barriers, certain gates, certain walls. Is all this imagination, fantasy? I do not think so. And then one asks: My God! Is it for long, is it for ever, is it for eternity? Do you know what frees one from this captivity? It is very deep serious affection. Being friends, being brothers, love, that is what opens the prison by supreme power, by some magic force. - Vincent van Gogh, letter to his brother, July 1880 ~ Andre Agassi

I was in a round the world hot-air balloon race. Before I left, I wrote a long letter to my children, in case I didn't return. I started the letter by saying, 'Dear Holly and ~ Richard Branson

Duke Leszek the White explained in a long letter to the Pope that neither he nor any self-respecting Polish knight could be induced to go to the Holy Land, where, they had been informed, there was no wine, mead, or even beer to be had. ~ Adam Zamoyski

SAYING AND CONCEALING For I would prefer to have these attacks and please you, rather than displease you and not have them. - Marcel Proust in a letter to his mother ~ Alice Miller

This is my letter to the world That never wrote to me ~ Emily Dickinson

Climate alarmists insist that the apparently missing heat (from CO2 warming)is hiding in the deep ocean -- which is like telling a child Santa Claus lives at the North Pole, as deep ocean heat can't be measured.
-- Ralph B. Alexander, Letter to The Oregonian, January 28, 2013 ~ Ralph B. Alexander

I will tell you what's left, three profound blessings. In his first letter to the Corinthians, Saint Paul tells us exactly what they are: faith, hope, and love,. These gifts, which are the foundation of eternity, God has given to us and he's given us complete control over them. Even in the darkest night it's still within our power to hold faith. We can still embrace hope. And although we may feel ourselves unloved we can still stand steadfast in our love for others and for God. All this is in our control. God gave us these gifts and he does not take them back. It is we who chooses to discard them. ~ William Kent Krueger

Around 1980, I'd been writing short stories, all to no success; so I wrote a fan letter to Stephen King and asked "How long should it take an aspiring writer to either get published or know when to give up?" Lo and behold, King wrote back to me in long hand with blue flair pen on 14-inch paper, purveying a very nice, helpful note; in it he said my letter proved a "command of the language," that I should never give up, and that it would take years to succeed, not months. "That's cold comfort but it's the truth." This was the ultimate encouragement for a young writer to be who didn't know shit about the market. I took Mr. King's advice and actually sold my first novel little more than a year later. I'll always be copiously grateful for this advice, and it's the same advice I give aspiring writers now (along with the story of King's reply!). ~ Edward Lee

Somebody just back of you while you are fishing is as bad as someone looking over your shoulder while you write a letter to your girl. ~ Ernest Hemingway,

I never read anything concerning my work. I feel that criticism is a letter to the public which the author, since it is not directed to him, does not have to open and read. ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

While she spent her time in correspondence, Laurin spent her free time with Albert.
Neither Laurin nor Albert, or anyone else inside the keep for that matter , could quite understand the appeal that Josephine and Graeme found in writing.
"Do ye plan on marryin ' the man through letters?" Laurin asked when she had returned from the evening meal. "Mayhap ye want to marry him by proxy."
Josephine simply shook her head and smiled as she went back to writing yet another letter to Graeme.
"How will ye consummate yer marriage?" Laurin asked. "Will ye do that by proxy as well?"
Josephine's face burned a brilliant shade of red as she looked away. She was at that moment responding to a question Graeme had posed on that very topic.
Laurin shook her head and threw up her hands in defeat . "I am goin' to bed."
Josephine returned to her letter. ~ Suzan Tisdale

In a letter to Gouverneur Morris (February 27, 1802), he drops into the following gloomy forebodings: -

"Mine is an odd destiny. Perhaps no man in the United States has sacrificed or done more for the present Constitution than myself; and, contrary to all my anticipations of its fate, as you know, from the very beginning, I am still laboring to prop the frail and worthless fabric. Yet I have the murmurs of its friends no less than the curses of its foes for my reward. What can I do better than withdraw from the scene? Every day proves to me more and more that this American world was not made for me. ~ Charles A. Conant

Atheism ... reminds one of children, assuring everyone who is ready to listen to them that they are not afraid of the bogy man.
Marx, Letter to 30 November 1842 ~ Karl Marx

It was here one brilliant November midnight that Edward wrote a formal letter to Violet and Geoffrey Ponting declaring his ambition to marry their daughter, and did not quite ask their permission so much as confidently expected their approval. ~ Ian McEwan

I expect to think that I would rather be author of your book [The Origin of Species] than of any other on Nat. Hist. Science.
[Letter to Charles Darwin 12 Dec 1859] ~ Joseph Dalton Hooker

I've been writing an ongoing letter to my children since they were born, full of recollections of their childhoods. I've filled two journals. It's a great thing to do as a mother - you forget a lot as you go along, but reading over what you've written brings all the memories back. ~ Tory Burch

I have a serious affliction: loving you forever.

[Letter to Arline Feynman] ~ Richard Feynman

Jessie reached into the box and took out an envelope. On the front was printed THE ALDEN CHILDREN. She opened the envelope, took out a piece of paper, read it, and gasped.
"What does it say?" Henry asked.
Jessie handed the letter to Henry. He read, "Aldens: Go home and stay home."
"I'll bet Mr. Carter wrote it. He said he didn't like neighbors," Benny said.
Henry said firmly, "We certainly aren't going to let whoever wrote it scare us away. Are we?"
"No!" Jessie said.
"We aren't," Benny agreed.
"I guess not," Violet said.

The Mystery of the Singing Ghost ~ Gertrude Chandler Warner

Nick looked as surprised as if I'd just handed him my acceptance letter to Hogwarts. ~ Heather Cocks

Your beautiful password is dead. It was simply too complex and too damned exquisite to live in your humdrum world, your humdrum mind. Now you must face the ignominy of clicking the password reset button for the 58th time this year. And as you trudge dolefully toward your inbox, waiting for the help letter to arrive, the cruel laughter of His Computerised Majesty rings in your ears. You have failed, human. You have failed.
~ Charlie Brooker

I like you; your eyes are full of language.
[Letter to Anne Clarke, July 3, 1964.] ~ Anne Sexton

Make the decision that you'll no longer use excuses to keep you from what you know is in your best interest. Today, act on something you've always avoided and explained away with a convenient excuse. Make a phone call you've been putting off, write a letter to a friend, put on a pair of walking shoes and go for a stroll, clean out your closet - do something you've been justifying not doing with excuses. ~ Wayne Dyer

Thus, even after 1888 and Ellen White's strong counsel regarding the once-for-all, all-sufficiency of Christ's death for our sins, one finds from time to time attempts to add to the simple gospel. These efforts sometimes run along the lines of Uriah Smith's argument quoted above - that Christ's death justified us, but after that our works are necessary to live the sanctified life. Another position, one that goes back as far as the late M. L. Andreassen, emphasizes the righteousness that must be had by those redeemed from the earth when Jesus returns. This "last generation" theology focuses on perfection of character rather than righteousness by faith. In doing so it falls into the error that Paul addressed in his letter to the Galatians, namely, adding something to the gospel, which declares that Christ has done it all for us. ~ William G. Johnsson

I think of you at any time of the day and my worried thoughts accompany all your steps. The slightest breath on your forehead is a kiss from my lips and each dream speaks to you with my voice. My love is like a coat wrapped around you to protect and warm you up."

- from letter to Lou Andreas-Salomé ~ Rainer Maria Rilke

bit of inaccurate information that somehow concerned crop or commodity market information or conditions. It does not matter whether you sent that message by telephone or mail or telegraph. It does not matter who you sent that letter to. It does not matter whether the information was actually false, or merely misleading. It does not matter whether your note actually had any effect on market prices anywhere, or even whether you intended for it to have that effect. The way this law was written by the morons in Congress, you are guilty of a felony if you send a postcard to your grandmother in a nursing home, trying to make her feel better by lying about how nice the weather has been in Florida, or how low the gas prices have been. And you will not find this law in Title 18 either; this one is buried in the bowels of Title 7 (sec. 13), which lists the laws supposedly regulating "Agriculture." Even ~ James Duane

Living your life without goals and plans is like trying to send a letter to somewhere without adding the correct the address ... The letter may get elsewhere in some days; so your life too goes somewhere else without better goals! ~ Israelmore Ayivor

It may not be easy, in every possible case, to trace the line of separation between the rights of religion and the Civil authority with such distinctness as to avoid collisions and doubts on unessential points. The tendency to usurpation on one side or the other, or to a corrupting coalition or alliance between them, will be best guarded agst. by an entire abstinence of the Govt. from interference in any way whatsoever, beyond the necessity of preserving public order, and protecting each sect agst. trespasses on its legal rights by others.
[Letter to the Reverend Jasper Adams, January 1, 1832] ~ James Madison

I am above the forest region, amongst grand rocks & such a torrent as you see in Salvator Rosa's paintings vegetation all a scrub of rhodos. with Pines below me as thick & bad to get through as our Fuegian Fagi on the hill tops, & except the towering peaks of P. S. [perpetual snow] that, here shoot up on all hands there is little difference in the mt scenery - here however the blaze of Rhod. flowers and various colored jungle proclaims a differently constituted region in a naturalist's eye & twenty species here, to one there, always are asking me the vexed question, where do we come from?
[Letter to Charles Darwin 24 Jun 1849] ~ Joseph Dalton Hooker

If there is to be no ceiling on the amount of money a man can take out of our economy, then concomitantly there can be no foundation below which a human being cannot sink. What capitalists must realize is that you are fighting to make capitalism survive, not destroy it; you are fighting to eliminate the seeds of destruction inherent in the status quo."
~Kurt Vonnegut, Jr's letter to Don Matchan, 27 April 1947 ~ Kurt Vonnegut Jr.

[Letter to William Ward, 11 July 1878]
Dear Boy,
Why don't you write to me? I don't know what has become of you.
As for me I am ruined. The law suit is going against me and I am afraid I will have to pay costs, which means leaving Oxford and doing some horrid work to earn bread. The world is too much for me.
However, I have seen Greece and had some golden days of youth. I go back to Oxford immediately for viva voce and then think of rowing up the river to town with Frank Miles. Will you come?
Yours
Oscar ~ Oscar Wilde

To take good care of ourselves, we must go back and take care of the wounded child inside of us. You have to practice going back to your wounded child every day. You have to embrace him or her terderly, like a big brother or a big sister. You have to talk to him, talk to her. And you can write a letter to the Little child in you, of two or three pages, to that you recognize his or her presence, and will do everything you can to heal his or her wounds. ~ Thich Nhat Hanh

I believe that people who do not vote in this country have no right to complain about the government that we are now living under. By the same token, if you don't really vote in television, you're never going to have your way. Write a letter to the president of the network. ~ Bill Bixby

Revelation is a pastor's letter to his floundering flock, an urgent telegram bearing a brilliant battle plan for a people at war. ~ Billy Graham

It is perhaps fortunate that Sylvia was oblivious to the commotion behind the scenes. Apparently, Henry O. Teltscher had written a letter to Betsy Talbot Blackwell, warning her that one of her guest editors was on the brink of a nervous breakdown. ~ Elizabeth Winder

Later that day I went back to the old turf-house door and drew back the ivy. There between the stones was the dried-out bird's nest that was no longer in use because its owner was on her foreign holidays. I eased my letter to Santa out of my pocket and tucked it into the nest. I considered this the ideal resting place because the owner and Santa both belonged to foreign places and came here across the sky. There was the mystery of the unknown about the worlds they both came from; they belonged in the sky and my letter was destined to join them there when the time was right. ~ Alice Taylor

In a letter to Sebastian...
"My brother is preoccupied with affairs of state and all the more suitable of his friends are unavailable at present, which only leaves you..."

Seb winced. The minx. She knew how to deliver a neat insult. ~ Nicola Cornick

I WISH I FIGURED OUT A WAY TO LOVE YOU WITH ALITTLE LESS EFFORT. ~ Diane Keaton

Week 34:
Write a love letter to yourself, and then give yourself to someone as special. ~ Ali Marsman

A letter to the beloved is like the ink kissing the paper. (Une lettre à l'aimée, c'est - L'encre embrassant le papier) ~ Charles De Leusse

At that bureau a lovesick woman in a crinoline, her hair parted in the middle, may have written a passionate letter to her faithless lover, or a peppery old gentleman in a green frock coat and a stock indited an angry epistle to his extravagant son. ~ W. Somerset Maugham

I like to write when I feel spiteful. It is like having a good sneeze.
(Letter to Cynthia Asquith, November 1913) ~ D.H. Lawrence

Pope Gelasius in his ninth letter (chap. 26) to the bishops of Lucania condemned the evil practice which had been introduced of women serving the priest at the celebration of Mass. Since this abuse had spread to the Greeks, Innocent IV strictly forbade it in his letter to the bishop of Tusculum: 'Women should not dare to serve at the altar; they should be altogether refused this ministry.' We too have forbidden this practice in the same words ... ~ Pope Benedict XIV

Read my letter to the old folks, and give my love to them, and tell my brothers to be always watching unto prayer, and when the good old ship of Zion comes along, to be ready to step aboard. ~ Harriet Tubman

I closed my eyes. The monster had named itself now - stolen its name from the Son of Sam, who'd called himself Mr. Monster in a letter to the paper. He'd begged the police to shoot him on sight, so he wouldn't kill again. He couldn't stop himself.
But I could. I am not a serial killer.
I put down the knife. ~ Dan Wells

Serendipity is another word in the luck family. Invented by Horace Walpole in 1754, it appropriately began life as a misprint. Walpole wrote a letter to Horace Mann developing the idea of serendipity from a 'silly fairytale' about chance called The Three Princes of Serendip. But Walpole had made a mistake: the real title of the story was The Three Princes of Sarendip (the ancient name for Sri Lanka). Before its current fashionable ~ Ed Smith

I intend to put up with nothing that I can put down.
[Letter to J. Beauchamp Jones, August 8, 1839] ~ Edgar Allan Poe